BUSINESS NOTES, TRENDS AND STYLEMAKERS : A Protest With a Few Frills on Top

An Oakland-based group called Asian Immigrant Women Advocates is trying to make life tough for San Francisco designer Jessica McClintock, best known for frilly, romantic clothes that seem to come straight out of a Victorian time machine. The group says it will hold a rally Saturday in front of McClintock’s store on Rodeo Drive, protesting the designer’s alleged use of “cutthroat” clothing contractors who cheat workers of wages. The demonstration will kick off a national boycott drive against McClintock, according to a spokeswoman. Initially, the group made its charges in a full-page New York Times ad Monday. Among other things, the group alleged that Asian women employed by sweatshops are paid $5--sometimes nothing--by contractors to make dresses retailing for $175.

In a statement, McClintock’s firm strongly denied the ad’s charges, noting that the company has held labor law seminars for its contractors and required its contractors to “agree in writing” to abide by labor and wage laws. The firm also said it has a policy of “refusing to continue to do business with contractors who have been charged with violating wage, hour or safety laws and who have not taken immediate steps to remedy these alleged violations.”

The firm also disputed the ad’s reference to a specific contractor, saying Asian Immigrant Women Advocates is trying to make McClintock “liable for unpaid wages of a contractor with whom we . . . ceased doing business over a year before the contractor went bankrupt.”

But the ad attacking McClintock also had kind words for the designer and her firm. “Her business success, philanthropy, and the way she treats her corporate employees have made Jessica McClintock a role model for many women, whether they happen to share her taste in frills or not,” the ad opined. Furthermore, the ad said that McClintock is not legally liable for the actions of contractors. Seeking to spread the guilt around, the ad also noted that McClintock is not the only American designer “purveying images of feminine fragility while exploiting the desperately hard work of women who have no time to think about such things. . . . “

The ad, picturing an Asian woman seated next to a sewing machine and holding a lacy dress, had already drawn some contributions to the group, said executive director Young Shin. It also drew “crank calls,” in which group members were told “to go back to your own country,” Shin said.

* PUTT IT BACK ON: Topless dancers in Galveston, Tex., will have to practice their trade somewhere besides the municipal golf course--which has a dress code.

City officials there apologized this week for the presence of topless dancers on the Galveston Island municipal golf course at a recent tournament sponsored by the nightclub where the women worked.

“To have topless women at a municipal facility is totally unacceptable,” City Manager Doug Matthews said. “Some people think it is funny, but it is not funny. We are a tourist community, and this is a total embarrassment.”

Several topless dancers from Heartbreakers, a nightclub in nearby Dickinson, removed their shirts during the Oct. 19 tournament. Course marketing director Don Hubbell said the women were present while 60 male golfers played the course, which was closed to the public at the time.

Hubbell said men aren’t allowed to play the course shirtless and those who refuse are ejected from the course.

* KEEP THE COLLARS: Two Massachusetts priests accused of violating a ban against blockading abortion clinics won’t be challenged on whether they should be allowed to wear clerical garb and be addressed as “Father” during their trial.

State Atty. Gen. Scott Harshbarger on Wednesday withdrew a motion for a “neutral clothing requirement” that he filed last week to ensure that a jury make its decision solely on the facts presented at trial.

The Revs. Thomas Carleton and Francis O. Hagerty are charged with violating an October 1991 court order against blockading abortion clinics in the state. No trial date has been set.

Some critics had decried the motion as an intrusion by the state on the Roman Catholic Church. Criminal defense lawyers and civil liberties activists said they could not remember such a motion ever being filed.

* PRICE WAR: A K mart store manager in Butte, Mont., went to a new Wal-Mart to check out the competition’s prices and was ejected by police. But he returned later after a prosecutor said he had done nothing illegal.

Phil Cammack said Wal-Mart employees saw him noting their prices last Saturday, the Wal-Mart’s first day of business, asked him to leave, and called police when he refused.

Officers put him in a police car, but Chief Deputy County Attorney Brad Newman ordered him released.